Who all here also has a HTPC?

I usually download TV ep's that I miss and then burn them to VCD... Well last night I was out of CDR's so I thought to myself... Why not just output the video from my laptop to my TV... The picture was way better then a VCD and 10 times easier.. So then I thought I should just build a HTPC for a permanant solution..

Questions.. Who all here has one? What are the specs (components and what not)? Did you build them inside a shell home theater equipment (receiver case or what not)?

Now I know there are a lot of HTPC forums but I just wanted to get some info from everyone here first...

heck I have 2 of them, but mine are just normal pc cases, one of them is a P4 1.5 with a ATI Radeon 9800 all in wonder, the 2nd one is a P3 1Ghz which I am just using a scan converter on. The P4 records DVD quality movie perfectly. The P3 is pretty much only good for playing mp3's and movies.

Now that I've got the bug for carPCs I'm starting to talk my g/f into HTPC. I'm glad you started this thread. I'm gonna start looking into forums for HTPC to get my info like I did in here. Any suggestions for a good, informative forum like this one?

Are there any other links or forums for HTPC? The meedio link is just software and the AVS link is TOOOO much... It talks about EVERYTHING under the sun... I was wondering if there was a website like this that is strictly about carputers...

How much of a PC do you need to record TV shows or play MP3's and what not??